


bone to the ire

by worry



Series: teeth to the loves and the curses [1]
Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Tragedy, Heavy Angst, M/M, Monsters, Self-Hatred, Sirens, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 19:53:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15541782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/worry/pseuds/worry
Summary: It takes a while for the Doctor to adjust to being trapped; such positions are true rarities, he can always get himself out of every situation, he’s smart, he’s Everything—in existence—he knows—but he is trapped.He doesn’t know how long it has been since he was lured to the temple. It feels as if he’s walked with Turlough for many, many years. Many centuries. Since the “beginning of time”, to the “end of time”. Maybe time has ended and the temple is omnipotent. Maybe this is before time and the temple is omnipotent. Maybe. There are so many variables to balance here and not enough time.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Additional warnings: cannibalism, gore, unreality.**
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> This work is very important to me, even if it is majorly weird. You may have seen it here a couple times before I deleted it. It took me so long to finish because the last day I spent with my father before he died last November, I spent in a cafe writing this fic as he wrote his poetry. After his death I just couldn't look at it anymore, and it took 5 months for me to be able to even think about it again. What started as a simple siren fic ended up being one of the most meaningful works, if not the most meaningful work, to me in the 6+ years I've been writing fanfiction.
> 
> The song that is often referenced in this work is [Two Tongues by Mariee Sioux.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FKC82tmCBE) Also, the soundtrack I put together for this work is [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/silasnathaniel/playlist/34Lan8uGPXvPEn5YSIogQO).Enjoy :)  
> 

There is one whole, universal, bleeding constant: you are never supposed to listen to the water sing.

 

Of course - water isn’t  _ supposed  _ to sing, but people are not supposed to hurt. People are not supposed to hurt, love is not supposed to hurt, hurting is not supposed to make the intensity of your love grow wings & fly fly fly away. So the water sings. So: human beings rot strangely. It really is that simple. It really is: love & love & love & love & love & hurt puckering inside of a body, sweet and sour. And the water sings. And people were not made for suffering, but they trudge through the toughness of life, suffering. And the water sings. And humans were not created hateful, but teach themselves hatred regardless.

 

And the water sings.

 

He’s good at this, you know: being alien, detached from all “love” when he needs to be. Oh. Yes, he loves - but it is love, and never Love. Love can make an entirely new being, transform parts & awaken parts, and we just - we can’t have that, we cannot change yet. He is good at it - he is good at - he is  _ good,  _ and the same unenlightened parts that compose him - they know the world. The universal, bleeding constant.

 

You are never supposed to listen to the water sing. It, of course, sings anyways.

 

The Doctor steps out of his TARDIS. “The Doctor steps out of his TARDIS” is the beginning of too many stories.

 

\----

 

You are never supposed to listen to the water sing but the forest is beautiful, but the forest feels like some new kind of home. There’s home here; he follows the singing down every pathway, every pathway already in his mind - he already knows the way to the water, instinctively. Instinctively. 

 

This part of Earth is barren. Yet the water sings on.

 

Something deep inside tells him to take his jacket off, wade in the water, submerge in it -  _ everything will be okay because it always, always is -  _ but the water continues to sing and the forest continues to be beautiful.

 

A little bit too beautiful.

 

_ Can you tell us the place where… _

 

(a shriek) 

 

_ the elders chew the sky? _

 

(The Doctor looks for the source of the music, spins around, three times, clicks t _ here’s no place like _ —)

 

_ Where   _ **_love_ ** _ is like _

 

(but the water looks so—)

 

_ a perfectly quilled arrow. _

 

_ Can you tell us? Can you tell us? _

 

(—inviting.)

 

A face pops out of the water, wing-fast. It stares into his eyes. It—oh,  _ he _ —is beautiful, the water is beautiful, the forest is beautiful,  _ beautiful. _

 

“Can you?”

 

“I don’t know what you’re —” but then there are cold, wet hands on his neck. Now he is one with the water, wing-fast again. The hands grasp his shoulders now.  _ Can’t you hear the world’s heart breaking,  _ plays in his mind - or bubbling in the water - sharp voiced. He fights upwards;  _ don’t worry,  _ says the hands,  _ don’t be afraid. _

 

It’s so cold underneath————

 

\---

 

“You’re not human.”

 

The first thing he hears, upon regaining his consciousness, is:  _ you’re not human.  _ The voice is sharp. The voice is sharp, and the room around him is wooden, old, creaking, bonewhite. On a second glance: the room around him is made entirely of bone, old and creaking; his body is wooden.

 

“Um. No, I’m not.”

 

“Thankfully _. _ ” A laugh, deep and distorted. “Come on, sit up.”

 

The Doctor tries - tries -  _ tries  _ to move his body. It is so heavy, and    wooden-about-to-break-into-pieces. It is so heavy, like: his heart. 

 

“I said sit up. You’ll choke on all that water if you don’t.” A pause. “At least, I think so. I’m so used to human anatomy.”

 

He grabs the Doctor,  _ right around the ribs, oh,  _ and pulls him upwards. They’re on some kind of bed; soft and inviting, like the water, like the song, like the man (“man”) touching him—

 

the Doctor could sleep here, forever. He coughs up the water and he doesn’t need the TARDIS—

 

_ THE TARDIS.  _ Of course. How could he be so foolish?  _ Of course.  _ He needs to leave. He needs -  _ so heavy -  _ to -  _ so inviting -  _ leave, he cannot stay -  _ so soft -  _ here, even if he -  _ bones -  _ wants -  _ wants -  _ to.

 

“What are you, anyway?”

 

“What are  _ you? _ ” he says in response. It is supposed to be defensive.

 

The man smiles; all teeth; all sharp teeth, razorsharp. One bite and he’d be gone. “I’m Turlough.”

 

“Is that your species?”

 

“No, that’s my  _ name. _ ”

 

“Oh. So what—”

 

Turlough sighs. “I honestly don’t know. I was…” (he stops for a moment, shakes) “not here, then I was, and then…”

 

Hm. “And then?”

 

“Then I got hungry,” Turlough says, dark and distorted. In the bones he looks almost human, wrapped in a suit and tie, dress pants, dress shoes. The giveaway: the scales underneath his eyes, the bright color of his hair. Almost human, but not quite. Never reaching.

 

He decides not to press further. “Okay. Well, if you don’t mind, I’ll be going now.”

 

“You think you can leave?” says Turlough (he hopes it is Turlough) (it does not sound like Turlough). The whiteness of the bone begins to fade. Yellow and brittle, some with old meat still clinging to the center.

 

The Doctor stands up, body no longer heavy. No longer feeling. No longer soft. The - the bed - is flesh-colored and pink, is - is - skin piled on skin piled on skin piled on skin piled on -

 

You get the picture.

 

Everything is  _ red. _

 

“You can’t leave.”

 

Turlough is the only thing in the room that looks normal. That still looks inviting, after the reveal. He’s still sitting there, on the skinbed, face twisted into a smile, a smile, a sick smile.

 

“And why is that?”

 

“Because no one can,” he replies. “Because I’ve tried.”

 

It clicks. “You don’t want me to leave, though, do you.”

 

Turlough closes his eyes; a few red tears trickle down his face until they suck back up into his ducts, his cheeks stained crimson. “I don’t think you understand.”

 

“Make me understand.”

 

His eyes open. They are black, now, voidlike. Spacelike, the color of loving. “I have been alone,” he says, “for  _ so long. _ ”

 

The Doctor stares down at him, suit clinging tight to his body. Turlough is pitiful, something to be pitied. Imagine being banished. Imagine being ripped from your world, and being banished. Imagine being Turlough, if Turlough is telling the truth; imagine being a monster, imagine being a body, a body, a body, stuck underneath the underneath of the water. How long has he been here? How long? Imagine suffering. He knows exactly how to imagine suffering.

 

[He knows that Turlough is telling the truth. It is so easy - to recognize brokenness.]

 

The Doctor sits down next to him, on the bonefloor. It cracks. “Tell me,” he says, “about your life before, then.”

 

Turlough wipes his cheeks. “I don’t remember any specifics.” He sighs. “What I  _ do  _ remember, is that it was terrible… I think - that I was exiled, and - so many people h…”

 

He looks up at the Doctor, doesn’t have to complete the sentence; something in him, the Doctor knows, can recognize other people who have been hurt.

  
  


\--

 

The house is exactly like the TARDIS; it goes on forever, Turlough at his side, Turlough holding his hand,  _ get lost in the bonehouse and you’re lost forever,  _ he says,  _ stick with me and we’ll unravel those forevers, and I will save you. _ He doesn’t say “together” out loud. He doesn’t need to - the Doctor can  _ feel  _ it, together. He can feel every flutter inside of Turlough; the bonehouse does this to you, Turlough tells him also, it was built this way. Eventually all individuality bleeds away into meat. Eventually Turlough’s essence absorbs any other human essence residing in the house, and he’s alone again,  _ alone  _ unravelling him like bones,  _ alone  _ unravelling his bones and everything else in his body, filling him up instead with lakewater.

 

Also, it isn’t a house.

 

The Doctor figures this out himself; it is a temple. The bones give it away. You don’t make houses out of bones. In every story: offerings. Gifts to the Gods, thanking them for their presence or, more often, to make them happy and benevolent so humans can live their lives peaceful and unafraid of wrath. The other inconsistency is the glamour, why it felt so calming and inviting during his first few moments inside of the temple, and how quickly reality faded when Turlough got -  _ upset,  _ boiling.

 

Houses are not magical. Houses are never magical. There is too much trauma buried in houses. There is too much trauma buried  _ here,  _ but the Doctor can feel it in the walls; the trauma is transforming. In Turlough’s mind: the trauma is transforming, and the Doctor has the sensation in the strings of his hearts. There is already a spark.

 

Turlough must feel the spark, too, because he squeezes the Doctor’s hand. “I trust you.”

 

“We’ve just met,” the Doctor says, frowning. “You have no reason to trust me.”

 

He places the Doctor’s arm behind him, pulls his closer. “I can feel you, though,” he says, “you’re a good person, you really are,” he says, running scaled fingers over the Doctor’s neck, “I want to be like you, I do,” he says,  _ closer now,  _ one bite and he’d be gone, remember, remember, would  _ anyone remember,  _ “but I forgot how to be good.” He laughs against the Doctor’s ear, soft and warm. “You will, too. Eventually.”

 

“I won’t,” the Doctor says-gasps. “I never will.” Something pulses through them, empty words,  _ Turlough’s heart may have been ripped and smoked but oh the Doctor has enough for both of them, enough love, enough metaphors to run a heart for eternity. He would rip out one of his own if it meant saving this boy, who he just met, who stole him from the world. He sees a mirror in Turlough’s voideyes, watches himself desperate on the screen. He can feel how Turlough feels him. Like: salvation. Like the end of hunger. Like a guardian angel ripped from above, like a heart. Like he is learning how to love again.  _ He will never forget how to be good. He is going to save Turlough. He is going to leave the lake. He is going to burn the temple. He is going to be good,  _ he is good, he always will be good _ —

 

“You still think you can leave,” Turlough says, letting go of him (the warmth against the Doctor dissipates and), leaving his hand (and he), leaving him lost (and he wants), looking at the Doctor (AND HE WANTS) like he is the beginning of a story ( _ to be warm again _ ), the beginning of the world. “Why?”

 

“I have a spaceship.”

 

“Okay, and?”

 

_ And _ —

 

And.

 

He doesn’t know. There is no way to get the TARDIS underneath the lake. There is no—

 

_ well there is always hope there is a l w a y s salvation he can a lways find a way, but _ —

 

they are trapped, truly, together.

 

“Just face it…  _ Doctor”  _ (the walls whisper his name) “we’re going to be here forever. You and me, always.”

 

He says nothing. Turlough takes his hand again, and then they’re walking through the temple, voiceless and wholly empty.

 

\---

 

The most troubling thing about the temple is that time never seems to truly pass. It never gets dark. It is never light, either - the aura of the temple is just  _ white,  _ artificial and blinding, unholy. There is a door on one of the walls; the temple grows longer and more vast every time the Doctor guides Turlough towards it. They are trapped. It takes a while for the Doctor to adjust to being trapped; such positions are true rarities, he can always get himself out of  _ every  _ situation, he’s  _ smart,  _ he’s Everything—

 

in existence—

 

he knows—

 

but he is trapped.

 

He doesn’t know how long it has been since he was lured to the temple. It feels as if he’s walked with Turlough for many, many years. Many centuries. Since the “beginning of time”, to the “end of time”. Maybe time has ended and the temple is omnipotent. Maybe this is before time and the temple is omnipotent. Maybe. There are so many variables to balance here and not enough  _ time. _

 

He is brave enough to pull himself down and sit against the wall. Turlough follows, leans against him. 

 

“Do you sleep?” he asks.

 

“I don’t need to anymore,” Turlough replies. “You don’t get tired here. It’s been like that for everyone—”

 

His eyes widen. The Doctor feels it immediately; he was not supposed to bring up  _ everyone else. _

 

“There have been others? Aliens, like me?”

 

“No,” Turlough says, biting his cheek, blood. “No one like you. Whoever put me here… sent me with… one of my friends. Human, if I remember correctly.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“I didn’t kill him, if you’re wondering.”

 

“I wasn’t.”

 

“Yes, you were. I can feel your thoughts, remember?” Turlough looks away. “He tried to leave the lake. Made it out for about a second, then he fell back into my arms… his head and shoulders were burned completely. He wasn’t recognizable anymore, just… ash and char. It’s one of my only vivid memories, and I think whoever put me here made it that way on purpose.”

 

“And then you ate him,” the Doctor finishes. “I can feel your thoughts too, remember.”

 

In Turlough’s thoughts:  _ painpainpainwhiteblackgraypainachelossfear fear and fear and fear andandaggression bubbles and bubbles and pains of loss and hunger. _

 

“I didn’t want to. I liked him. I think I liked him, I mean.”

 

“But?”

 

“But I got too hungry, too desperate. I couldn’t stand looking at Hip— _ his  _ body any longer, either.”

 

He almost feels sorry. He looks at this monster with its big, sharp,  _ monstrous  _ teeth & its big, sharp  _ monstrous  _ claws and feels sorry. He looks at this monster with its humanhunger past and feels sorry. He looks at this monster and thinks:  _ this is not a monster. _

 

“I don’t want your pity, Doctor.”

 

“You don’t understand. I feel no pity for you.”

 

“Then what are you feeling?”

 

_ Love,  _ the Doctor thinks, and says nothing.

 

\---

  
  


It’s not - love - in the traditional sense. He doesn’t feel any romantic connection to Turlough, there is nothing in him that is foolish enough to love a hungry, hungry man---but he sees mirror shards inside of Turlough and his hunger. His own faces staring back at him in the body of a man who he is not foolish enough to love. He loves Turlough as what Turlough represents: an eternity of desperation, of the Doctor’s form in a monster,  _ he was once like this, of course,  _ an eternity of not loving, not being foolish, not loving, knowing, not loving, feeling, not loving, not loving, never loving. Repetition of the mind. He will never love Turlough in such a way, but he is certainly interesting company; their eternity together will be bright and scintillating, and he will not be foolish enough to love. He is intelligent. He knows.

 

Unless Turlough eats him. This has been a possibility since their first words---- _ can you tell us the place where-- _ \--he gets hungry, eventually---- _ love is like--- _ -and kills and is monstrous---- _ haunting.  _  But. But the haunting. But the haunting is. But. The haunting thing. But the haunting thing inside of the Doctor says:  _ I would let him do it. I would let him eat me.  _ The Doctor estimates that they have been stuck here for a year, now, he is getting  _ desperate.  _ He would let Turlough eat him, if Turlough wanted to. If Turlough felt the need to be alone again. He has done so many good things for the universe, has saved so many lives and worlds and souls  _ and,  _ he is content with his life. It can end here. It was always going to end up like this: the Doctor trapped, and falling.

 

He is not foolish. But he’s been here for a year; time has no true meaning, but he’s been here for a year. It should be torturous. It was never torturous.

 

The song continues to play.  _ The hauntings, the hauntings. Like magma into the caverns, for the hauntings. Make a graph of our death _

_ beat, pulse, murmur, quiet, _

_ pulse, murmur, quiet. _

 

There’s a hand on his shoulder. Turlough is colder now. “I’d never eat you,” he says, and something daggers into the Doctor, like: foolishness, “I haven’t even been hungry since you came.”

 

The Doctor sighs. “You can’t lie to me. I know the hunger has been getting worse.”

 

“I’d never eat  _ you, _ ” Turlough says, and, like magic, like hope,  _ hello?  _ echoes through the temple. Someone has been listening.

 

He blinks

 

and

 

Turlough is gone, leaving only cold air to bite him.

 

\---

 

He was right about the temple; it is incredibly easy to get lost in, if you don’t know what you’re doing. But he can’t feel Turlough anymore, and Turlough is his only—

 

it is imperative that he finds Turlough. Neither of them deserve to be alone.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


He walks.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


There are low growls coming from - the  _ floor  _ of the temple. He doesn’t let it bother him;  _ find Turlough  _ runs through his mind

  
  


_ beat, pulse, murmur, quiet _

 

and he walks.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


And he walks.

  
  
  
  


“Doctor?”

  
  


“Turlough?”

  
  


He turns and  _ oh -  _ Turlough looks - the scales and blueness of him have all faded, his suitjacket and tie have been discarded, and his eyes look nearly -  _ hu - m - a - n _

 

_ beat, pulse, murmur, quiet _ —

 

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” Turlough says. “Why’d you leave me?”

 

“I didn’t mean to.”

 

“It doesn’t matter,” Turlough says, and he grabs the lapels of the Doctor’s jacket,  _ and _ —

 

then he’s kissing the Doctor, but his body is warm. He feels human. He feels like foolishness. He feels like - God - like  _ love.  _ Like everything the Doctor has or has had or knows or wants is falling out of him and he’s touching Turlough back and  _ whatever they’ve been here for eternity and they can have the rest of time like this, like , like, like , like , he’s learning how to love , again. He is loving. _

 

A hand slides to his hips, moves his clothing upward-- - - - - a hard hand, warmest hand--

 

he opens his eyes. It’s bone, now; body half-eaten, meat clinging to the skinless forearm. He pushes it away & it falls to the ground, its chest ripped open, heartless and lungless, open and desecrated. Its head has been bashed open & its brain ripped out. It isn’t Turlough. It was never Turlough.

 

The body dissipates into the air. He should have known.

 

\---

 

Turlough touches his shoulder again. It is the real Turlough; he knows this by the blood and flesh clinging to his mouth, in his sharp teeth. His clothing is stained deep. “I’m sorry,” he says, wiping his chin. “I - really am. At least it wasn’t you.”

 

He would recoil in disgust if he couldn’t feel Turlough’s self-hatred pulsing inside of his own body. It grabs the Doctor’s entrails  _ like eating  _ and pulls them,  _ hate hate what have I become what have I,  _ and he does pity, he does, this is someone who has lost everything and he should hate Turlough like Turlough hates himself but he 

 

_ beat _

 

_ pulse _

 

just cannot stuff these things back inside of him. Turlough is a man with blood on his hands (and in his mouth in his stomach ruining his body—) and the Doctor just pities. He mourns the dead. There is a monster before him, but he has known this monster for years and years and years and years.

 

“What’s wrong?” Turlough asks; he keeps forgetting that Turlough can  _ feel  _ it, and it felt real—the kiss, the touches.

 

“Nothing.”

 

“I thought we were past the lies.”

 

The Doctor sighs, considers. “I’m going to figure out what exactly this place is,” he says. “It’s been too long. I should’ve - should’ve done this a while ago.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Well, this isn’t - this isn’t a house. It’s a temple, to some sort of Godlike being. And it seems like, whoever that is, is keeping you here on purpose, alone on purpose, forcing you to give it offerings. Or sacrifices, what have you.”

 

“You’re saying I’m a pawn,” Turlough says, and his eyes go dark again, dark. 

 

“Essentially, yes.”

 

“And you,” Turlough says, voice distorted, voice inhuman,  _ deep and haunting (the hauntings and beat pulse) and,  _ “knew. You knew this, and you didn’t tell me.”

 

“Turlough. I’m sorry.”

 

“I’m not someone’s pet. I’m  _ not. _ ”

 

Turlough is restraining himself. He wants -  _ he wants to hurt andpainpainpain murmur -  _ but he doesn’t. He knows better. He wants to hurt but he doesn’t, but the Doctor is - oh. In Turlough’s mind: salvation.

 

“No, you’re not.”

 

His shoulders relax. He -  _ melts,  _ tension of the body unraveling. He looks up into the Doctor, defeated entirely.

 

“I want to know something.”

 

“What?”

 

He approaches Turlough gently, watches him melt even more, even more when he puts both of his hands on Turlough’s shoulders. “When did you fall in love with me?”

 

Turlough bares his teeth, pushes the Doctor away, turns  _ redbloodred.  _ He is a monster now, truly. Nothing about him now is human. 

 

"̶H̥̻̖O̺͍̲͞W̷͈̟̤̭̟͉ ̛̺͎͚D̜̮A͏R̗̱̤̩̤͎̝E͏͙̬̤̺͖̠ ̠͓ͅY̖͚̹̮O̺͠U̗̮̞.̝̗"̼̲

  
  


He’s still restraining himself. He is still lovable.

 

“Turlough, wait,” the Doctor says, wholly desperate. “I don’t mind.”

 

“Of course you would,” he hisses back. “Just stop lying to me. You can’t love me and I can’t love you.”

 

“Why not?”

 

Turlough inhales, exhales. Claws poke out from his fingers, so he clenches his fists, hides. He goes even redder, scales on his body turning void black. ‘You  _ know  _ why,” he says, and his teeth are protruding from his mouth, down to his chin.

 

Oh. “I think you’re lovable.”

 

His body melts, again, into almosthuman this time, into normal, no teeth or claws  _ or.  _ “Really.”

 

“Let me show you,” the Doctor says, and touches him softly.

  
  
  
  
  


 


	2. Chapter 2

One bite and he’d be gone. Remember. 

 

One bite and he’d be  _ gone,  _ shreds on the floor, some kind of forbidden temptation hanging upside-down from a bare tree branch, oh. One bite and he’d be gone—

 

and he is, sharp teeth marks deep in his shoulder, Turlough licking up the blood  _ like hunger but  _ never going further, self-restraint and self-control and everything that contradicts his appearance, monsterbody.

 

It’s beautiful; Turlough has his head on the Doctor’s chest, and he is not a monster. It is also more complicated than that---they are still in the temple, of course they are still in the temple, and the Doctor is starting—

 

starting to—

 

to—

 

_ forget.  _ He is the Doctor, two hearts to love with, all of time & space at his disposal and he chooses the monster to love. The not-monster monster, the complex monster, the everything. Turlough is all of time & space. Turlough is all. They’re going to be together forever.

 

He traveled. He knows he had a family once, two teachers(????????????????????????) and and, and and, and, a granddaughter? He loved many times before this, but?  But? But?  _ Soldiersandbigbrainsbigmindsandloveandscientistsandhhhhhhh hhhhhe has loved before but But now there is only Turlough and h e tries to remember what a nonmonster love is like but there is only Turlough and the temple, flesh on flesh.  _

 

Flesh on flesh.

 

Flesh on flesh.

 

Flesh on flesh.

 

He can  _ feel  _ Turlough, every melt and shake of surprising softness and pleasure inside of him. Feeling Turlough’s mind in his mind mirrors it all, folds everything in on itself and maximizes, and - if - the Doctor didn’t have one remaining part of his personality to cling to, he would be in love as well. Flesh on flesh. Flesh on flesh and lips on flesh and lips on something so inhuman that it’s almost human.

 

\---

 

The thing about humanity is that it is a terrifying concept. Humans start off in neccessity and move to greed and destruction. The good humans, the ones that give the Doctor hope and love and some sort of filling, padding inside of the sharpness inside of the sharpness inside of him, get punished. You get hurt and blamed for it. You stop others from hurting - you die. 

 

He still loves humanity, of course, in all of its terror. There is  _ always  _ hope, and good prevails.

 

Turlough, however, was never human. It is not an unfitting comparison. He is here: so monstrous, a grasp on certain aspects of humanity, that he looks human, looks like something the Doctor can love, or does love, or will love. He might even love the temple, for bringing them together.

 

\----

 

“Doctor,” he says, and they’re holding hands, they are. The aura - though he may be mistaken, it is so easy to make mistakes here, he is not Used to mistakes,  _ he hurts  _ \- seems slightly  _ whiter,  _ at this particular moment of time. It would be useless to say “today”. So it has been flickering - for a  _ while,  _ emitting some sort of false faith.

 

Things are changing in the temple. He can feel it, somehow; Turlough can, too, squeezes the Doctor’s hand and stares at the ceiling. “ _ Doctor. _ ”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Why do you still think you can save me?”

 

Oh. He hadn’t noticed that thought, clinging on clawdeep into the back of his mind;  _ he can save Turlough, he can save himself and their entity as a whole.  _ He still thinks there is a way out of the temple, but he doesn’t know what lies beyond the temple. Outside of the temple: the TARDIS, somewhere, he thinks, he thinks. Outside of the temple: worlds that need saving, real monsters. Outside of the temple: other things, he knows, there are other things. Everything is vast and Turlough is a simple speck in time and space—

 

but he’s so much more than that, everyone is. No one is ever,  _ ever  _ insignificant.

 

There are other things beyond the temple. He knows that, instinctively. Emotionally, however: they’re going to be together forever.

 

“I always have hope,” the Doctor replies. “Hope is the driving force of the universe, Turlough.”

 

“Forgive me for losing it after centuries of being trapped in a temple that’s literally made of bone… after centuries of being whatever the hell I am now. It’s hard—well, impossible—to have hope in a situation like this.”

 

“It’s not impossible. We’ve already established my feelings on that. Tell me, then, do you think  _ I’m  _ impossible?”

 

“I don’t know,” Turlough admits. “I thought - that no one could ever love me. That it just wasn’t  _ possible,  _ to love something like me. So, in a way, I guess so.”

 

The Doctor smiles, soft and slight. Turlough rests his head on the Doctor’s chest, both surprisingly calm.

 

\--

 

To introspect: he has always had issues with “love”, and this situation is folding it even deeper, even more complex; sometimes he doesn’t want to admit it. Admit that he’s in love, that is. 

 

But love, in and of itself, is a complex thing; you don’t notice that you’ve fallen in love until you’ve already fallen hard and the person you love laughs beautifully or smiles beautifully or  _ exists  _ like meeting fate and falling in love with fate and

 

well - then you know.

 

He doesn’t - he doesn’t - he doesn’t  _ remember  _ what love feels like. The kind of love that does not pertain to worlds and civilizations, the kind of love that is bonedeep and passionate, the kind of love that exists between two people and ascends them into the sky. 

 

Love doesn’t feel like being trapped in bonecages. Love should never be a trap. It feels like - liberation, he knows that it feels like liberation, he knows, he knows, he doesn’t remember what love feels like but he  _ knows  _ that it doesn’t feel like being trapped and neverleaving and being trapped underneath water but still living as a curse. Maybe the temple is a punishment; he was pulled underwater and didn’t drown. He kept living. He kept living. He kept loving.

 

Living. He also doesn’t remember what living should feel like; living feels like saving, living feels like living and there’s no tangible definition of what living is and living involves loving but it also involves

 

being a part of life, and not stuck underneath water, crushed. He has not been able to save in a very, very long time so he has been ripped out of life. He is not the monster here, certainly,  _ no one is but _ , but what is the sole purpose of a Doctor?

 

It goes unsaid.

\----

 

Turlough is lying on his back, right against the hard, cold floor; it is a beautiful position (you don’t notice that you’ve fallen in love until you’ve already fallen hard and the person you love laughs beautifully or smiles beautifully or  _ exists  _ like meeting fate and falling in love with fate and) and the Doctor just watches him. He’s silent, eyes watching the high ceilings of the temple like something is going to change or crumble if he focuses hard enough, if he concentrates. His body looks relaxed. The Doctor has gotten used to this by now—watching him look nearly normal on the floor, against the bonewalls, on his lap and against his skin. The most natural thing across all species and all races: desire. He  _ wants  _ Turlough in all ways; he wants to love him and feel him and it is so

 

so

 

so

 

so

 

so

 

so

 

so

 

so

 

so

 

so

 

so

 

so

 

so

 

so

 

_ HARD _

 

when he looks normal. When he looks like someone you’d find on a beautiful planet, and not someone you meet underneath a lake. Not someone who is hungry. No.

 

He can’t help himself, can’t hold himself back; he takes in the sight of Turlough and it feels like h—

 

No. It doesn’t.

 

He takes in the sight of Turlough and happiness forces its way into his mind. He’s  _ happy  _ now, in this situation of terror, in this eternity. They’re going to be together forever. Not happiness, maybe, on second thought; it’s more like strange bliss, a bliss born from suffering and pain. Oh. He’s in the aftermath of it. He is living an aftermath. The aftermath: love. The aftermath: he takes in the sight of Turlough and eternity isn’t long enough. 

 

_ How,  _ the Doctor thinks,  _ can he be so relaxed?  _ His arms are folded behind his head. He looks like he’s about to drift off----but you don’t sleep here, so he never will. He will simply be stuck in a limbo, moving between awake and asleep and wherever you go when you’re asleep but conscious of everything around you and whatever dreams are, whatever dreams are.

 

Thinking about it now—

 

there is one essential question that has been bothering him, unknowingly. 

 

Why is there a bed in the temple if no one ever sleeps?

 

He assumes that it’s just Turlough’s way of not letting any body parts go to waste. He kills like ancient, loving humans do—out of necessity, using every part of the body for survival. The bed is sewn, mirroring a normal bed almost exactly barring its flesh color mixture. It’s careful and beautiful and the Doctor didn’t know he was capable of such softness, such intricacies. Such tenderness.

 

It still doesn’t make sense. They haven’t touched it since the Doctor’s arrival.

 

Why?

 

Why? 

 

Rest is a concept full of spirit; relaxing and becoming rejuvenated, refilled with energy, reclined in position and becoming holier. You build your spirit back up with rest, you come back to life with rest. He is, suddenly, very tired, or he should be tired, or there is a hole where tired should be that he has only just now noticed. The weight on his back is immeasurable.

 

You don’t rest here. Which means: corpses, which means: tainted souls and lost energy and spirits like bone like the absence of holiness like being buried alive like being torn out of the world and trapped in eternity. Which, of course, means: they are going to be together forever. 

 

There are too many questions in the temple: why is there a bed? Can you die from natural causes, or do you just continue  _ living?  _ Is Turlough still hungry? Is he still hungry? Is he? Are they going to die together, too? Would that be beautiful? Would they hold hands in death? Will they decay? Would Turlough love him, if they met under different circumstances? Would  _ he  _ love Turlough if they—

 

Turlough is staring at him and the weight on his back is  _ i m m e a s u r a b l e .  _

 

“Are you okay,” he asks, but he knows the answer. He knows. “I can feel your confusion.”

 

The Doctor smiles, because that is what he always does around Turlough, that is the only comprehensible feeling in the atmosphere. “I’m okay,” he says, and watches Turlough crawl over to him, “I’m doing well.”

 

Turlough smiles back, but it’s different; serpentlike, the temple as a garden. He looks entirely too tempting. 

 

They’re going to be together forever.

 

They’re going to be together forever.

 

They’re going to be together forever.

 

f o r e v e r

 

_ Forever. _

 

“I have a question,” the Doctor says suddenly, and Turlough climbs into his lap, straddles him, ethereal.

 

“What is it?” he whispers into the Doctor’s ear, followed by a soft bite to his neck, oh, temptation, beginnings and endings and love. Love. Love. He is not hard to love.

 

“What are we?”

 

Turlough pulls back, stares into his eyes. “We’re two people trapped together for eternity underneath a lake,” he says, “it’s that simple.”

 

“You know what I mean.”

 

“Of course I do,” Turlough says. “We’re two people trapped together for eternity.” He grasps the Doctor’s face and  _ kisses him,  _ long and sweet and holy. “This is only natural.”

 

They continue kissing, beautiful repetition, right against the walls of bone and the walls of love and the tissue of his hearts. Turlough on his lips, the world against his lips, the weight of the universe on top of his body and crushing. It is supposed to be tragic. He thinks it is supposed to be tragic. Instead it is - of course - beautiful. He has always been in love with the universe. The universe’s complexities and Turlough’s complexities merging, and

 

“Doctor, I need you,” Turlough whispers, and then it’s a haunting chorus of  _ doctor, doctor, doctor.  _ Doctor. They are too similar; the Doctor just can’t  _ hold himself back,  _ can’t find a way to calm himself. He does get - crazed, in every way, crazed with love and crazed with desire and 

 

oh

 

he needs Turlough too, he needs to feel beautiful. He had never considered it; what if he is the monster? What if he is the monstrous one, the unlovable? He has always had issues with “love”. Love is the one, bleeding, universal constant, like  _ don’t listen to the water sing -  _ long ago, he remembers this, long long ago. Don’t listen to the water and fall in love. Simplicity. Instinctively: there are no monsters in the temple except for whatever being trapped them in the temple, and 

 

oh

 

what if that being  _ knows?  _ What if that being can feel the love, too? What if that being knows the truth? The truth that the Doctor doesn’t even know, and he always knows the truth  _ because when you can travel through time and space you know every truth but  _

 

_ he _

 

_ just _

 

_ can’t _

 

_ figure out _

 

why he has those love issues, that lovesick feeling.

 

No. No monsters except the monster of desire.

 

“Turlough,” he whispers back, “we’ve never---”

 

“I know.”

 

“I’m worried that it will overwhelm you, if we do. I don’t want to hurt you.”

 

“I know you’d never hurt me. And why would it overwhelm me?”

 

“You’re touchstarved,” the Doctor tells him, and proves it but running a hand underneath Turlough’s suit jacket, down to his hips. Turlough shudders. “Still, after everything.”

 

“Doctor, it’s okay if you don’t want to.”

 

“No,” he says suddenly, firm and distinct. “I never said that.”

 

“Don’t worry about me. Just don’t. I wish you’d stop worrying about me.”

 

“I’m never going to stop worrying.” 

 

[He does not end it with  _ about you,  _ purposeful. He worries and loves, all.]

 

“ _ God, _ ” Turlough exclaims, and - and - and there’s a rumbling, a growling on the bones in the temple. Slight, just a slight shaken form. The walls shake and stop.

 

“What was that?” the Doctor asks.

 

“I don’t know,” Turlough says. “That was weird.” He goes back to kiss the Doctor, run his lips over the skin of his jaw, and the Doctor lets out a soft moan before shaking away.

 

“What’s wrong?” Turlough asks.

 

“Try saying it again.”

 

“ _ What? _ ”

 

“God,” the Doctor whispers, and the rumbling starts again. Louder and more violent, the walls tremble and vibrate against them. Bone dust falls to the floor, flaking on their heads.

 

Turlough climbs off of him and stands up. He opens his mouth---

 

“No,” the Doctor instructs.

 

“‘No’ what?”

 

“Don’t say it.”

 

“You said---”

 

“I know what I said, Turlough. But I have a terrible feeling that the rumbling will get even more violent if we continue to say it.”

 

Turlough sighs defeatedly. “What do you think it was?”

 

“I’m not entirely sure,” the Doctor replies. “But I think it does confirm one of my suspicions.”

 

Turlough stares at him, apparently tired of asking the questions. He knows---the Doctor knows, he can feel it---that everything is better if the Doctor is allowed to ramble on his thoughts.

 

“That someone’s watching us.”

 

\------------

 

To introspect: he wants. He has always  _ wanted,  _ he has always felt the sickness of it. Desire, skin-burning. Want, hunger. He’s just very, very good at hiding it. Turlough on top of him, ready to give him what he has always wanted;  _ once upon a time there were two aliens and two monsters and two lovers and two people trapped together for eternity it’s only natural, Doctor, it’s nature.  _ He never did answer the question.  _ Once upon a time, the big bad wolf and the curious fell together and became one. The wolf learned to be careful and the curious learned to be fearless and they explored each other. And yes, in the end, the wolf wasn’t a wolf at all. It had teeth, yes. It had claws, it had big paws, yes. But it was never a wolf. It was never dangerous. Its ferocity was out of necessity.  _ Turlough on top of him, ready to give in to desire, the burning. Turlough, wolfteeth against his neck.

 

And he said:

 

“I worry.”

 

He worries. He is selfless.  _ Does he ever get tired of being selfless?  _ That, again, is an instinct. He has so many instincts:

 

  * Love and love and love and love and love and love and love and love and love and love and love and
  * Save. He will always try to save, that is the singular most important part of all life; kindness. Everyone deserves kindness. Even the biggest beast can be tamed with a warm heart. He really does believe in it. Despite everything, he really does.
  * Love and love and love and love and love and love and love and love and love and love and love and
  * Curiosity. _The curious learns to be fearless._ The only logical step in an unknown situation is curiosity; you explore your surroundings, you learn the mechanics of the given. He would be nothing if he did not have the childlike fascination, the awestruck beauty of the worlds.
  * (Love)
  * (and)
  * (love)
  * (and)
  * (love)
  * Love. He will always love. There is _always_ something to love in every situation, even when there are species in the universe that were born from hatred and the discard of all emotion, even when he loses hope. There is always love. 
  * Hope. He finds a way to have hope even in temples made of bone, even when he is stuck for eternity. Without hope, there is no reason to continue, to tread on and on through the wild.



 

Instincts are, obviously, instincts. You cannot burn the wildness out of an animal completely.

 

And Turlough was going to give him everything he wanted. He wanted  _ Turlough  _ in every form, every kind of love. Black-and-white. He still does. He always will. They’re going to be together forever.

 

He thinks about it again. Eternity with Turlough, eternity with someone he is trying so hard to love. It’s been so long already; decades, centuries, time with Turlough passes so quickly and Turlough is so easy to love but

 

so difficult to pin down, so difficult to stop from moving and settle. 

 

The repeated question, the one bleeding, constant universal question: are they going to die here? Eventually, will they die? Can you even regenerate down here? What does the temple have against Time Lord cells? Will he continue and continue while Turlough becomes a shell? The Doctor thinks:  _ I saved him from withdraw, I saved him and broke his shell.  _ Oh. He  _ has  _ saved, the second instinct. He saved Turlough. He was the savior, the light. Did Turlough need saving? He was never a monster.  _ You’re not human,  _ says Turlough’s voice in his mind, reminiscent of their first “day” their first “meeting” in the temple, when Turlough chose him---

 

Turlough chose him---

 

To kill, of course, to consume. Turlough planned, initially, on killing him. He somehow forgot that. But now Turlough is consuming him in a different way; reaching into his chest and pulling on everything he can grab and forcing his way lodged between both of the Doctor’s hearts. Again: he is not hard to love. He is not hard to love. It is the Doctor’s “issues” with love that pose the problem. The ultimate problem: can the Doctor find it in him---that vulnerability---to love again?

 

He is, by nature, a vulnerable being, seemingly especially in this regeneration. He knows feeling like the skin on his body, he knows feeling like he knows the good in the universe---that is, very well. He refuses to do harm. He has strong opinions and a strong mind (and strong hearts and) and he knows how to hold himself in every situation; upright and collected until it crumbles and the story reaches the climax and he

 

allows that vulnerability to start again. He can control himself until he can’t. He will always make the right choice, even if it seems like the wrong choice to others. He knows the Truth, of course. He is very friendly with truth, and Truth. They’re different, distinct beings: truth reveals the nature behind actions and words, truth finds the plot holes, and Truth takes his hand and says

 

_ why do you still think you can save me? _

 

Truth, with its personification, holds his hand and squeezes his hand and guides him through every moment, every otherworldly moment spent in the temple. Truth also holds his hand and places it on Truth’s hips, inside of Truth’s sensitivities. Truth is unlike truth in a variety of ways - the first and most prominent being the fact that the personification of Truth is  _ built  _ of holes and inconsistencies. How ironic; it is only a name. Doctor is only a name. You know the truth, and you fall in love with It. That is how the world works and spins on. That is how life goes. That is what makes you  _ alive. _

 

To live is a sole, burning act of bravery. To live is to rebel. So the Doctor rebels in the temple, defying all.

 

\-------

 

“What did you do,” Turlough says suddenly, touching his arm, “before - here?”

 

He doesn’t want to admit that he doesn’t remember; it slips away with every glance at the white aura, the old bones, every brush of skin between them (flesh on flesh on flesh on flesh on—) another broken-off part. Something has its teeth in the Doctor’s mind, the beautiful complex mind with bite marks.

 

The basics: he is the Doctor, Time Lord. He travels through time and space with—

 

the—

 

T—

 

TA—

 

TA—

 

…….

 

With a—

 

He has loved before. It is strange how the only thing he can remember is love, but it makes sense; it exists in every part of him. Everything in his body can be used to love, in the same way that every part of a carcass can be used to survive--- _ you love bone-deep.  _ Love put these bones on these walls. Love did. You pull off the skin of love and wrap it around you, and then you are one with love, you are comforted in the cold and sheltered by love. Love is a thick, guiding thing, when you eat the meat of it. When you can pull out the heart of love and sink your teeth into it and  _ the Doctor has done so many things and l o v e d s o m a n y t i m e s but he has never. Felt. The body of it until now, until the temple, until his lives were changed.  _ The body of love and its redundancy.

 

He doesn’t remember what love looked like, before the temple and in peace. Turlough embodies love now. Turlough is now, and always, and he will learn

 

to deal

 

with his fear of loving. Loving Turlough is different. The one, bleeding, universal question: if he knew Turlough in the previous life, back in the beforetimes and the dark times and the light times  _ and, _ would he still—

 

That question, admittedly, despite its constant status, is  _ tiring. _

 

“Many things,” the Doctor replies. “I, um. Travelled. Haven’t we been over this?”

 

Turlough frowns. “I don’t remember. Also, that’s not a real answer.”

 

“Yes, well, I don’t know why I thought I could be vague around you.” The Doctor sighs. “I’m not sure.”

 

“You’re not sure about what?”

 

“About what I did before. I know the basic gist of it, of course: I travelled through the stars, through space and time, through everything. But I can’t seem to remember any specifics.”

 

Turlough can sense his discomfort; he places his hand over the Doctor’s, strokes it. 

 

(He’s growing more and more affectionate, the Doctor notices. He’s slipping away. The Turlough he met in the beginning and the Turlough he knows now are a contrast, dark black and soaring white, a harmony of planets in the sky. Maybe it’s love.  _ When did you fall in love with me? _ )

 

“Shit,” Turlough says. “Sorry.”

 

(He doesn’t ask any questions. Hm.)

 

“I know the same thing happened to you. I don’t know why I didn’t think it would happen to me as well.”

 

“What else can you remember?”

 

The Doctor sighs. He considers saying it;  _ I remember love, I remember love, I remember the feeling of it and how it crawls inside of you and eats everything it can find and replaces it with gold and heaven and how everything _

 

_ flutters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! _

 

_ when you are in love, how everything turns floral, how even the most awful parts of the universe can look bright and beautiful when you are in love. _

 

Oh. But Turlough can feel it, and forgetting their connection will make everything chip away, chip away, fade. Turlough has been inside of him. Not physically, never physically, but mentally, viscerally; their emotions holy and united, their bones and muscles and meat melding together, their bodies a beautiful mixture of skin like skin beds like bone walls like saying God in a rattlesnake temple. 

 

The temple is not kind. The temple is not beautiful. But Turlough, underneath its light and horror, _ is  _ _ (even the most awful parts of the universe can look bright and beautiful when you are in l----).  _ He stands out shining. They’ve been here for centuries; the Doctor doesn’t know how he looks, if he is ragged and rundown and dissheveled, but he knows that he is certainly not as beautiful as Turlough, as the love between them.

 

He runs his free hand through his hair, still soft and clean. He wants to share his everything with Turlough, he does. It is time.

 

“Love,” Turlough says. “Oh.”

 

“I loved,” the Doctor says, “a lot. But _ \---” _

 

Does he? It almost comes out without intent;  _ no one as much as you.  _ It would be a lie. It would be a lie. It would be a lie. The Doctor is not a liar. He is a temple of honesty and kindness and---

 

_ even the most awful parts of the universe can look bright and beautiful when you are in l--- _

 

_ lo--- _

 

_ l-- _

 

_ love. _

 

He wants to chew the rot off of the word and spit it out. He loves Turlough and that love is holding him against his will in a temple made of bone. Of course.

 

“Thanks,” Turlough says. “You don’t have to say it.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“Don’t apologize. I haven’t been in love before, but I’m sure you know that.”

 

“Yes,” the Doctor replies. (He didn’t know, but---). (It makes sense). “Well. Opposites attract.”

 

“They really do,” Turlough says, entwining their fingers. He looks up at the Doctor with his eyes, his eyes, his beautiful eyes, and it’s suggestive, it’s a  _ want,  _ it’s rose rose rose red and passionate and  _ the Doctor doesn’t know how one stare can ingite so many fires and set off so many sparks and make his body _

 

_ sssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaakkkkkkkkkkkkeeeeeeee _

 

_ so much, but it’s Turlough. It is not surprising. He is, oh, beautiful.  _

 

“Turlough,” he whispers, and he usually - wouldn’t - give in to such small, quick desires - but it’s Turlough, and he - and - and he  _ wants.  _ He  _ needs.  _ The world will wait for them. Someone, he knows, is watching, so let them watch.

 

“Yes?”

 

He’s trying to seem innocent, as if the Doctor wants innocence, as if he knows what the Doctor wants but doesn’t know the extent of it, doesn’t know how deeply he wants to want. He should know. But he can feel Turlough’s desire, too - it’s been too long, they’ve been waiting too long for this. They’re in love. They really, really are.

 

“Come here.”

 

Turlough climbs onto him again, a beautiful familiarity. Flesh against flesh. Flesh against flesh, body against body, love sparring for a win, for a release, for some kind of holy intimacy. And when Turlough kisses him again, it feels entirely new - the love revelation filling them both, replacing everything old on Turlough’s body with rebirth and new skin, more skin to touch, flesh on flesh. His body against the Doctor’s like a story in history, his lips brushing against the Doctor’s neck like mythology, like the frailty and complexities of time. He thinks of it as exploring the unknown, running his hands

 

down Turlough’s sides, sliding his jacket off slowly, taking in the surrounding life or, in this situation, whatever is underneath Turlough’s skin, whatever is inside of him, whatever he has to love with. Watching Turlough like watching suns burn, he unbuttons Turlough’s undershirt, oh. So many things to love. So many inches of holy on his body. It is hard to imagine Turlough with anything inside of him that works like a heart does, but. There’s  _ something.  _ There is always something.

Turlough, kissing him. The emotions invoked:  _ I love you so much but the sickness inside of me says I will want _

 

_ to climb into you and ruin you and love you with my idea of love so much that it smothers. I have discovered what it feels like to love. I have discovered you and your body and you kn ow somet times I jj ju st ca n’ t ho ld myself _

 

_ BACK, so I’m sorry. I hurt for you, I always hurt for you. Never listen to the water sing. Haunting haunting haunting. Can you tell us the place where _

 

_ love is soft and kind? Your song inside of me and me inside of you amen.  Your love inside of me and me prying love open with two tools and I don’t love you in the right way but  _

 

_ we’re stuck forever, and we’re already gone. Think about it: this world is no world to live in. This world is CRUEL AND I CAN’T  _ and he can’t  _ and I CAN’T  _ he can’t  _ hold myself  _ he can’t hold himself  _ BACK, SEE. _

 

The Doctor moves upwards, fire. Fire on their bodies like rising from the lake and sinking. He can feel Turlough’s pain. He can feel everything that Turlough feels, pleasure folding in and in and in  _ I can’t hold myself back I want to love you but I love like crashing  _ and in, mirroring. He feels Turlough and his and it’s

 

better than any love he has ever felt. The monster comparisons are in history; this is  _ human, _ this is real. Neither of them are human, but these desires are desires are desires and desire is, of course,  _ universal,  _ so they are everything, so they can be anything amen.

 

_ You don’t need to hold yourself back,  _ says a voice - Turlough.  _ Don’t worry about me. _

 

_ I always worry about you. _

 

_ Just this once, stop worrying and just enjoy this. Okay? Can you do that for me? _

 

_ I love you but I don't know how to love you. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Let me show you. _ _   
_   
The Doctor's face moves downwards, sticks against Turlough's chest and his soft, sensitive skin. Turlough shudders beautifully in his mouth, beautifully; the noises he makes like a hymn, the noises he makes like godly words, whimpers, soft breath. He grips the Doctor’s shoulders, hard. It feels almost as if someone else is controlling him - desire, maybe, personified. Desire taking the Doctor’s hands and he finally knows where to put them, he finally stops worrying. Desire moving his body like an animal, Desire and instinct melding together,  __ this is how you love, put your hands here and here and here, put your mouth here, bodies are sensitive here, love here. 

 

His body warms. It’s so hot in here. Turlough continues shivering against him, the only light in the universe, in this moment the universe is dark and empty and over and they are the sole surviors, they are the only things that matter,  _ no one is ever insignificant but o h Turlough’s body body is body is body body is so  _ soft  _ that he could fall _

 

_ and _

 

_ become.  _

 

“On the floor,” Turlough says, and the Doctor obeys, submits. In a normal world he would be the one giving the orders -

 

but there is something vicious on top of him, that he loves. He loves Turlough, viciousness and all. So the floor is rough against his back, but he’s strong, he is always  _ always  _ strong, and Turlough stays on his hips, stitched against him, two bodies one being as a beautiful work of art. He leans over, elbows above the Doctor’s shoulders, and they’re kissing again, Turlough a masterpiece, Turlough’s body spun from gold and heat. Nothing in history could have ever prepared him for  _ this. _

 

“Can I,” Turlough whispers, “I want to—”

 

He’s being gentle. He didn’t know that Turlough was capable of being gentle; maybe the Doctor implanted that into him, the monstrousness is a skin shed on the ground.

 

“Yes, yes, please,” the Doctor replies, too overwhelmed to train the desperation out of his voice, like he usually would, build a wall between him and the simplicity of omnipresent, bright Desire. Not now. He belongs wholly to Turlough.

 

Turlough presses down into the end of his thighs, beginning of his body & hips, and the Doctor - just - can’t hold himself back, he moans, bares his mouth like an animal. Who is the monster now? Hm? Who is the Doctor now?

 

The Doctor moves himself upwards, bucks—and then they’re moving against each other, divinely, celestial bodies and planets colliding. The Doctor and Turlough as two separate worlds, sliding into each other, collision course. He feels more at home than he has ever felt as it grows faster, intense—something about this man he met underneath the world is home. Maybe it’s because the temple is home, now, maybe it’s because his memory is fading, maybe it’s because he has known Turlough            only for  _ c e n t u r i e s,  _ but it doesn’t matter in the end. He met Turlough and he stays with Turlough and their bodies are hot like stars and Turlough is moaning his name into his mouth  _ Doctor Doctor Doctor Doctor Doctor Doctor Doctor Doctor Doctor  _ and  _ pleasepleasepleaseplease _ —

 

“Turlough,” he whispers, “I love you—”

 

and Turlough reaches his release at the words, a slip of the tongue, words pouring from mind out of mouth. Yes, he loves Turlough, yes. Oh: he’s in love. He is in love. He is in love and it’s all-consuming, it is bigger than the world and the temple. It’s larger than he is. He feels complete, as if he was somehow incomplete before the temple. He doesn’t remember, remembers Turlough only. But this is all that he needs, the completion of a cycle. Thank you. Thank you. He thinks to no one: thank you, for giving me this. His release follows—

 

and then they’re just on top of each other, breathless.

 

“I love you, too,” Turlough breathes, climbing off of him and resting his head on the Doctor’s chest, legs wrapped around his. “Hey - that was nice.”

 

The Doctor lets a laugh escape. “Yes. Yes, it certainly was.”

 

Turlough laughs too, small. He just pushes himself deeper against the Doctor’s body, sighing in comfort. The Doctor presses a kiss to the top of his head; they’re beautiful, they are so beautiful. 

 

“Turlough, can I ask you a question?” the Doctor asks, suddenly.

 

“Yeah, go for it.”

 

He swallows. “Do you think that…. um. Suppose we met under… different circumstances. Would we still feel this way about each other?”

 

Turlough is silent for a moment, thinks about it. “I want to say yes,” he admits, “but honestly, I don’t know.”

 

He sighs again, closes his eyes; the conversation is over. The Doctor doesn’t mind; they’re going to be together forever, and Turlough will rest on him forever. They’re beautiful, they are so beautiful.

 

\------------

Oh.

 

He almost forgot about the door.

 

It’s been there since the beginning of their time in the temple, but he was too busy focusing on Turlough and Turlough’s love to give it much thought; stupid. It should have been the first priority. He should have prioritized it, over love. But love, as he feels it, deep and straight-to-the-bone, encompassing full, body driven, is a  _ downfall.  _ Turlough is vulnerability, walking and breathing and loving against him -

 

he doesn’t mind. He should. Maybe he’s too in love, maybe love is a blinding of muscle.

 

The door seems - more noticable, now. Brighter, as if it is purposefully drawing attention to itself. Like it’s singing (remember the universal constant;  _ never listen to the water sing and never listen to doors call to you and never let yourself be lured _ ), like it’s singing for him - for  _ them,  _ but when he looks over to Turlough, Turlough looks oblivious to the door. He’s biting at his fingernails, staring up at the ceiling again. He’s been here the longest and he hasn’t noticed it - maybe the Doctor is finally losing his mind, maybe he’s gone verifiably mad, or maybe he just has a penchant for noticing these things, maybe it’s something that only  _ he  _ is supposed to feel.

 

Well.

 

“Turlough.”

 

“Yes?”

 

He taps on Turlough’s shoulder, gestures towards the door. “Have you ever tried to open that door?”

 

“Oh, that.” He snickers. “I tried a  _ lot,  _ when I was first put here. But the door was always miles away; it was like it moved further away with every step I took, so, you know, eventually I just - stopped trying. It’s impossible.”

 

“Oh, Turlough,” the Doctor says, and reaches over to stroke Turlough’s cheek, “nothing is ever impossible.”

 

He springs onto his feet. This is the first time he has felt  _ true  _ excitement, elicited by something other than his companion, since entering the temple. It feels almost normal, almost, almost,  _ almost.  _ Like he is himself again. Like he remembers.

 

“Wait, Doctor, you’re not  _ seriously  _ going to—”

 

“Of course I am,” he says, and offers Turlough a hand. “Are you coming with me?”

 

Turlough stares at him, up and down, picking him apart like meat off bone. Then he takes the Doctor’s hand and lifts himself off of the ground. “I guess so. You’d lose your way without me.” He sighs. “You’re insane, you know.”

 

“I’m well aware. Come on.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“So how did you not notice the door until now?” Turlough asks, after they’ve been walking for a while, both in silence, both contemplating it;  _ if  _ they reach the door, by some godly miracle, what lies beyond it? What’s on the other side of that door? There are so many possibilites that it’s nearly overwhelming - the Doctor is never overwhelmed, but the new possibility, the possibility being dug up from underneath the ground, of some kind of freedom or advance, is overwhelming. How long have they been stuck here? How long?

 

“I did notice it,” the Doctor replies, slight scoff at the implication that he wouldn’t notice something so prominent. “I just got, uh, well, you know. Distracted.”

 

“You? Distracted?” Turlough mocks, lovingly. “Impossible.”

 

“Really, Turlough?”

 

“Really.”

 

“Just so you know, I am usually a very keen observer.” He sighs. “I don’t know. It just seemed to disappear into the background, until now. Like it wanted me to open it.”

 

Turlough grabs the Doctor’s hand. “I’ll try to be less tempting.” He smiles, full of teeth - oh - they’re sharp again,  _ the Doctor needs to remember what he’s dealing with.  _ “You know doors aren’t sentient, though, right?”

 

“I thought that temples couldn’t be sentient until you said the G word. Nothing is ever impossible.”

 

“Yeah, but you said it yourself. It’s not necessarily the temple, is it? It’s whoever you think is watching us.”

 

_ Oh. Right.  _ “I’m surprised you remember that considering what we were engaged in at the time.”

 

Turlough pulls his hand away - just to playfully hit the Doctor’s upper arm. “I  _ am  _ capable of thinking about things other than sex, you know. I’m a keen observer, too.” A sad laugh. “Well, I was forced to become one, anyway.”

 

“Forced to?” the Doctor asks; he gets it immediately after it leaves his mouth, regrets his words.  Turlough was tarnished. That never leaves you, stays scarred for eternity. They’re going to be together forever. An eternity, with a broken man. 

 

“Uh… yeah.” Turlough’s voice fades, falls like falling from weakness, ending. Lower and lower. Lower and lower. “I don’t really want to talk about it, sorry.”

 

“It’s okay,” the Doctor replies. “I’m sorry for bringing it up. I didn’t mean to.”

 

“It’s fine.” Turlough turns his attention to the walls. “Wait,” he says, suddenly and firmly, full of alarm, “where did the door go?”

 

The Doctor refocuses his eyes. It’s gone. “It’s gone.”

 

“I noticed.”

 

They begin to turn around frantically, looking every angle to where the door might’ve traveled to, as if it is sentient, as if anything here is alive. 

 

Oh.

 

“Doctor, look.” Turlough grabs his arm, pulls him backwards - the door is behind them; they’ve been walking away from it for miles and miles.

 

“How did that happen?” the Doctor asks, and he feels everything inside of him wilt. Turlough was right; they’re never going to make it to the door. They will keep trying. He’s set up this outward appearance of someone so positive and full of  _ life  _ that it would be - dangerous - to let that falter now. He will keep the faith alive, he will keep the faith burning.

 

“I don’t know.” Turlough presses his hands to his head. “I think - maybe if we focus on the door instead of each other, maybe it’ll stop being so difficult?”

 

The Doctor shrugs. “Okay. That does make sense.”

 

They begin moving towards it, and Turlough grabs his hand again, momentarily, until he pushes it away. “Try not to think about me. I know it’ll be  _ so hard. _ ”

  
  


“And you must not think of me,” the Doctor says, ignoring his remark. “We cannot touch or pay attention to each other in any way, but we still need to stick together. Are you ready?”

 

“...yes, I’m ready,” Turlough replies hesitantly.

 

_ I believe in you,  _ the Doctor sends out, vibes into him.  _ I love you. _

 

And they walk.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Someone is here with him, in the temple. The door is getting closer and he’s been walking on his own for too long, too long. He knows that someone is here with him, in the temple. There has to be  _ someone,  _ he can feel it, can feel the breath and the warmth around him. He’s alone. He is alone but he isn’t alone, and there’s a door. Okay.

 

The Doctor  _ knows,  _ somehow, deep down in his body in his tissues in everything composing him, that he shouldn’t think about whoever is accompanying him in the temple. It sears his mind. It burns at his skin. He has always been alone. He has always been the only one in the temple. That is only a fact -

 

and there is no possible way anyone else could have entered without his knowledge. He does feel, in the middle of his stomach, like the emotions inside of him somehow are not his own, like they belong to an external source, projected sharp into his emotions, blurring. 

 

No.

 

He has always been alone.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


And he walks.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


It continues to fade; he’s starting to forget how he got here. The facts: he’s in a temple, walls made of bone and sickness. He is underwater but living. And he is alone, just as he has always been. It feels like he was born here - like he came into this world grown and placed into the temple, knowing no world outside of it. That is, of course, untrue, he knows that  _ instinctively;  _ but how did he end up here, if that was not the case? How? 

  
  


He was pulled———

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


He walks.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


He has always been alone.

  
  
  
  


He keeps walking.

  
  
  
  
  
  


The door is getting closer in sight. He keeps walking.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Why is he walking?

 

It is important for him to keep walking. Why is he walking? Why? How did he get here? Why was he put here? How. How did he——————————————

  
  


How did he—

 

Who is he—

 

What is this place? The walls are made from bones. Where is he? W H E R E ? It’s so white. It’s so  _ white,  _ so bright, like the light from stars, like a sun burning. It’s nearly blinding. It’s so white. Where  _ is he?  _

 

Why?

 

Why did he end up here?

 

Is—

 

Is this—

 

Is this h—

 

Is this some kind of Hell? An underworld? Afterlife punishment? Did he do something wrong?  _ He tries so hard to be good, he remembers that. He tries so hard. He is so good at being good. _

 

What  _ is  _ he? There are two races in his chest. He must be a monster, he must be something so grotesque and disgusting, too monstrous to live in a normal world so he was sent  _ here _ ——————————

 

Something cold and metal hits his hand. Oh. It’s the doorknob. He feels like he should be excited about finally reaching the door, but instead it sends waves of panic throughout his body

  
  
  


and he doesn’t know much but he knows that he never  _ ever ever  _ **_panics._ ** Something is very, very wrong.

  
  
  


He closes his eyes and twists the knob.

 

\---

  
  


The Doctor wakes up with a body on top of him - a warm body, a familiar body - a loving body - oh. Turlough.

 

...Turlough?

 

Turlough grasps the Doctor’s face with his hands. “You forgot about me, didn’t you?”

 

“I guess I did,” the Doctor replies; it was empty, it was so empty, he felt so hollow and alone without Turlough in his mind. All thoughts slipped through his mind, by the door. He forgot. He forgot about the love. How is that possible? How can someone so moved by love simply  _ lose it? _

 

“I…” 

 

There’s a defeated hesitation in Turlough’s voice;  _ he’s feeling the same thing, how can someone so moved by love simply lose it? How? What broke him? They both feel empty, and hollow; emptiness is only universal. _

 

“I forgot about you too,” he says finally. “I couldn’t see you. I felt so empty…”

 

The Doctor smiles, pities. They complete each other - at this point, separation would be devastating. If they went too long without each other, it would be disastrous. They are, in every way, one. He understands that now. The temple has always been made for two people, two lovers. Turlough is one half of him, now, holistic and beautiful.

 

He kisses Turlough softly. “It’s never going to happen again.”

 

Turlough climbs off of him and he stands up; his body aches, the Doctor aches,  _ aches.  _ The - the room around them is painted in dark, warming green, filling them up with comfort. Comfort here is dangerous, they know, but the room radiates strange softness. It looks exactly like - a home, in a normal world. A king-size bed is pushed back against a wall, bright temple-white sheets and comforter. 

 

He turns; there’s a large kitchen in the corner, complete with a dinner table holding a basket of apples, tied with a ribbon, atop the wood. There’s a refrigerator and a stove, too, and - all of a sudden -

 

“I’m so hungry,” Turlough says, and the Doctor feels it, too. He’s so hungry. That’s the ache, oh, hunger,  _ hunger;  _ Turlough must sense that he’s nearly about to fall unconscious, because he grabs the Doctor’s shoulders and pushes him into a chair by the table. “Eat,” he orders, and the Doctor - without thinking about it -  _ in the stories eating food from unknown sources is bad news, will trap you, will harm you, will kill you, will rot you from the inside -  _ grabs an apple, tries to forget about the connotations. 

 

Turlough runs right for the refrigerator, opening it hurriedly. The Doctor’s conciousness and sanity begins to slowly restore with every bite he takes. 

“I think,” the Doctor says, muffled by chunks of apple, “that the, um, length of time I spent without food is starting to catch up to me.”

 

“Me too,” Turlough says, and then goes quiet immediately.  _ He didn’t exactly go without food, did he? He’s feeling guilt, he is so guilty, it pulls at the muscles of his stomach, thick.  _

 

The Doctor turns to tell him something like:  _ it’s okay, I don’t blame you, I don’t mind, it doesn’t matter, you’re not a monster. Look at me: I can’t _

 

_ hold myself _

 

_ back. I want to say you’re in good hands but it’s more like you’re right at home, fitting in perfectly.  _ But Turlough already has his mouth full of what looks like a very delicious turkey sandwich, so it’d be useless.  _ I love you,  _ the Doctor thinks; he can’t tell if it’s pure.

 

He eats through every apple in the basket, thinks of his hunger like love. He is, wholly, a consuming being, sparring against the basic restraints of life. Love, like hunger, is to consume, to insert yourself into the holiest kind of time and space---that of another person. Love, like hunger, can only temporarily be satiated.

 

He loves Turlough sated.

 

After finishing, he walks over to Turlough, rests a hand on his shoulder. Turlough is still eating. “Hold on,” he says calmly. “Save some for later. We’ll need it.”

 

He swallows his food and puts the rest back in the refrigerator slowly, clutching his stomach. Then, as if on cue, he passes out into the Doctor’s arms. 

 

The Doctor carries him over to the bed, pulls it out into the middle of the room, and rests him down onto the mattress gently, so gently. Upsettingly, he realizes that he is also very, very tired.

 

\-------

  
  


_ The TARDIS is so warm. It seems warmer than it has ever been, and he can feel its relief upon being reunited with him. He touches the console softly as he walks through, the lights flickering on and off on and off on and off. Caresses it, runs his fingers over every control, every button, every lever. _

 

_ Turlough follows him inside, and he gasps; the Doctor can tell that the gasp is a falter, that he felt the need to hold himself back. There is no “it’s bigger on the inside!” exclamation, but he never honestly expected anything like that from Turlough, because Turlough had already seen so much and felt so much and been hurt and it’s just _

_ not _

 

_ fair to think of him as some kind of normal being, holy being. His body looks entirely humanoid now, any trace of alienness and feature gone. He’s saved, he really is. _

 

_ Now - suddenly, in a blink, in a flash, in every word for a scene change and a quick moment - he’s pressing Turlough into his bed. It’s been -  _ so long -  _ since anyone has been in his bedroom, since anyone else has touched these sheets, been truly underneath him. _

 

_ They’re kissing and groping and touching like wild, wild animals, and the Doctor has never felt this wild - he hungers and hungers and ensures that there is no space between their bodies, this is all that he has ever wanted.  _

 

_ Then, point-flash-advance, he’s pressing himself into Turlough slowly, and can think of nothing else but his own wanting. He is repulsive when filled with this much want. Turlough screams and gasps again at the enter, and continues to do so when the Doctor gradually increases the pace - the sounds that he makes beautiful, the sounds like hymns on knees, like true peace in the universe, like. He loves Turlough wholly. He wants Turlough, forever and ever; they deserve a happy ending, a life with no trouble. Once upon a time— _

 

The Doctor jolts awake, shaken by the dream. Oh; he is repulsive when filled with this much want. Turlough is sleeping next to him, looks like antithesis of a monster, an angelic being at his side. Even with the scales on his face. He represents everything that the Doctor has ever needed, has ever craved, and as he watches Turlough breathe slowly, as he watches Turlough’s softness and otherworldly serenity, he  _ knows:  _ he has never loved anyone as much as he loves Turlough, which is: beyond bone deep, infecting everything composing him. He  _ loves.  _

 

He’s about to whisper his love, unable to hold himself

 

back

 

when Turlough turns over, right against his chest, and pulls him closer, closer, closer, arms around his torso. The Doctor - well. He finally feels safe.

 

\----

 

\-------------------

 

\-----

 

\----------

 

It makes them almost feel human, the routine - they sleep and they make food (as it turns out, strangely, Turlough can cook  _ well,  _ now that he isn’t forced to -  _ adapt _ ) and they love and to the outsider eye it would look like two people in love, starting a family together, living softly and quietly in the middle of the woods or a desert or anywhere that living is calm. It makes them almost forget that they are aliens, that they are, in their own right, vicious monsters. An outsider would mistake them for human, but they’re not; they are More, they are whole, they are loved. The Doctor and Turlough, forever. It is a beautiful story. 

 

It makes them almost feel human,  _ almost.  _ The haunting aura returns when the Doctor pulls back the window curtain to find a solid, green wall. The haunting aura returns when they look around and see no door. The haunting aura returns when Turlough falls into his arms and the Doctor sees the scales on his face move.

 

Time is, somehow, becoming linear again. The Doctor can feel the morning without the sunrise. He sleeps next to Turlough, pulls him closer at night;  _ if he pulls Turlough in close enough, maybe Turlough will feel safe, maybe Turlough will feel like he has never been hurt, maybe Turlough will be saved, healed, fixed.  _ They can feel the night, more than anything; everyone can feel the darkness, everyone can feel the night as it surrounds them. It is never difficult to know when it gets dark. The room is unlike the outside of the temple in every way, yet they have many similarities - they are still trapped, they are still going to be together forever and ever, ever and forever, forever and ever and forever, for **ever.** They are still going to be together forever; the only difference is that it’s more tasteful now.

 

\----

 

Turlough takes the turkey out of the oven and sets it on the dinner table - he does this while humming,  _ mmmmm mmmmm mm m m m m mmmmmmmmm  hmmmmm,  _ beautiful noises. He thinks that he should recognize the song. He thinks that it goes something like:  _ can you tell us the place where….  _ but: the memory is too cold against his mind, against everything that makes his brain  _ tick and turn and everything  _

 

_ that makes him move and feel and understand and l i v e . _

 

He’s alive. He’s living. His hearts beat, and his lungs expand;  _ they’re going to be together _

  
  


_ can you tell us the place where _

_ the elders chew the sky soft… _

 

_ forever. _

 

They’re going to be together

 

_ The hauntings, the hauntings. Like magma into the caverns, for the hauntings. Make a graph of our death _

_ beat, pulse, murmur, quiet, _

_ pulse, murmur, quiet _

_ beat pulse _

_ f _

_ murmur _

_ o _

_ quiet _

_ r _

_ beat _

_ e _

_ pulse _

_ v _

_ murmur _

_ e _

_ quiet _

_ r _

_ beat. _

 

The place where love is soft and kind and people stay together forever? Think about it: outside of temples and homes, people break up, people divorce, people separate, people die and pass and move on and jump off of boats and crash cars and

 

only the lucky stay together forever. Outside of temples and homes, Turlough will die and the Doctor will live on - it is a curse, sometimes, the lifespan of the Time Lords. Turlough will die. In here, no one ever dies and though the world is cruel, it is getting softer, and  _ Turlough will never die and he will never die and they will be together _

 

_ f!!!!! o!!!!!!! r!!!!!! e!!!!!!!! v!!!!!!! e!!!!!! r!!!!!!!!! _

 

Oh. Oh, that’s it: he doesn’t want to leave. The goal used to be escape, the stages of grief. He is no longer the Doctor; now he has turned into a being of illogical love, now he has turned into a being ruled by his own emotion over his mind. It’s a step backwards, it’s the end. He is loved and he loves and he doesn’t

 

(for)ever

 

want to leave.

 

He stopped being able to feel Turlough a very long time ago. Well. No. He can still feel Turlough, but it’s not as intense as it used to be. Turlough is still inside of him, but dormant. He is still there, buried between cardiovascular and bone and every part of his body that can be recorded. Things that cannot be written down: the way he jumps when Turlough touches him, the way everything inside of him f f f f  l l l l u t t t t t t t e e e e e e r r r s s s 

ffffffflllllllllllllluuuuuuutttttttttteeeeeeeeerrrrrrs

 

back 

       and

forth

 

when Turlough looks at him. There are no monsters here. The monsters are buried, like Turlough inside of him. Things that cannot be written down: how much love just

  
  


**_HURTS_ **

  
  


in every situation. It hurts. Even when you are so deeply in love. Even when you flutter. He goes:

 

_ The hauntings, the hauntings. Like magma into the caverns, for the hauntings. Make a graph of our love _

_ beat, pulse, murmur, quiet, _

_ pulse, murmur, quiet. _

_ beat, pulse, murmur, quiet, _

_ pulse, murmur, quiet _

_ beat, pulse, murmur, quiet, _

_ pulse, murmur, quiet _

_ beat, pulse, murmur, quiet, _

_ pulse, murmur, quiet _

_ beat, pulse, murmur, quiet, _

_ pulse, murmur, quiet _

_ beat, pulse, murmur, quiet, _

_ pulse, murmur, quiet _

_ pulse _

_ p u l s e _

_ m m m m m u u r r m m u r r  r r r rr r r r r _

_ (quiet) _

_ beat, pulse, murmur, quiet, _

_ pulse, murmur, quiet _

_ beat, pulse, murmur, quiet, _

_ pulse, murmur, quiet _

_ beat _

_ pulse _

_ murmur _

_ quiet _

 

when he thinks of Turlough. Oh: it’s haunting.

 

It’s haunting.

 

He should want to leave. It should be his everything, the hard-kneed goal to reach. He’s forgetting every fundamental part of his identity - he is the Doctor, he has goals and morals and always, always the best intentions. His idea of saving should be an escape plan, a red X at the end of the maze, and his idea of saving should be pathways forming in his mind and his world should be getting Turlough who he loveshauntsoh  _ out of here bu t he just can’t _

 

_ hold himself back.  _ We’ve covered this. He’s losing every crucial part of his being, replacing logic with more flesh tissue.

  
  


Turlough takes the turkey out of the oven and sets it down on the dinner table; there is one question that neither of them particularly want the answer to, one question that would make the home crumble (there are many questions) (there is  _ one question  _ in this part of the story that matters) (only one):  _ where does the food come from? _ More appears in the refrigerator after they have consumed everything in store, over and over, a repetitive cycle. They’re trying not to think about it. Take it as a blessing, the Doctor thinks - it doesn’t  _ look  _ like human meat, so they can pretend the food they are eating is normal food that isn’t simply appearing out of thin air. It doesn’t  _ look  _ like human meat, nor does it taste like human meat (not - that he knows - what  _ that  _ tastes like--) so it isn’t human meat, so they are both very, very good at pretending. Look at Turlough: he pretended an entire love story into existence. Look at the Doctor: he doesn’t want it to end.

 

“Are you hungry,” Turlough asks; he knows the answer. They are always hungry. They are always filled with the deadliest want.

 

\----

 

Turlough’s head against his chest at “night”----during  _ sleep,  _ where his body resets and rejuvenates and b e come s something new, another cycle, cells and cells and cells---Turlough’s head against his chest. The Doctor should be sleeping, too - but the body against his (the entire identity, the entire barebones of the story of the Temple:  _ bodies)  _ is too soft and  _ he wants to savor it he doesn’t want _

 

_ to leave but _

 

_ he doesn’t want to leave but _

 

_ he doesn’t want to leave _

 

_ but _

 

_ but _

 

_ he needs to.  _ Needs and wants contradict too often; he  _ wants  _ to stay and be with Turlough  _ and they “lived” happily ever after  _ but - that - it’s not Who he is. He is lost. He is so,  _ so lost;  _ this is why love is biting, this is why loving is hurting and loving is a blinding grotesque thing and this is why - it’s not him. This is not the Doctor. He can never feel in balances.

 

He presses a kiss into the back of Turlough’s head  _ oh he is so sorry he can never feel in balances he can never get himself _

 

_ oooooouuuuuuuut _

 

_ of situations dug deep in groundholes in wonderland growing and shrinking --- _

 

“God,” he whispers, and things begin to rumble - the paint on the walls no longer olive green but cracking away into dark inkblack - the dining table breaking into a - a pile of wooddust - - - -

 

Turlough jolts awake, sits up. He grabs onto the Doctor for stability. “What’s - what the  _ hell  _ is going on?”

 

“Progress.”

 

“What?”

 

“I’m getting us out of here.”

 

“ _ What--- _ ” and he looks down to the floor, shaking _ trembling _ ohheissosicktheDoctorissosorry-----

 

He takes the Doctor by the shoulders. “You’re going to leave me.”

 

“I’m not going to leave you, Turlough.”

 

“No - you said you loved me but you’re  _ leaving me, I-- _ ”

 

“Turlough, listen: I’m not leaving you. I’m taking you with me.”

 

He shakes the Doctor slightly. “I don’t know anything outside of this place; I’ve been here for so long I’ve forgotten who I  _ really  _ am - you don’t want me. I’m sick. Who knows what I’ll be like when I leave? What if the real me is worse? I could - I could hurt you, I could - I - I could - I -  _ look.  _  No, you - you have to leave me behind. I don’t deserve to leave. I changed my mind.”

 

“I’m willing to take that chance. I am  _ not  _ leaving you here. I don’t simply just  _ give up _ on people like that.”

 

Turlough stares into his eyes, just for a moment,  _ deep deep into him and his soul and his ev ery th ing;   _ and then he sighs, his hands falling slowly down the Doctor’s arms and into his own lap. “Okay. Um. How are we going to get out of here?”

 

“Say it. Keep saying it until something happens.”

 

“Say…”

 

“ _ God.  _ Say it.”

 

“God,” Turlough whispers, and everything continues, continues to fade away; he climbs onto the Doctor, kisses him, passion and fire and -

 

And Love.

 

“God,” the Doctor breathes, firing back. “ _ God, _ ” a chorus, a chant between both of them as Turlough moves up down up down - and everything bends, everything around them turning into air and being ripped from existence and everything just - it doesn’t - it - it  _ stops. _

 

And then, with both  _ bodies  _ on edge, the floor begins to  **b o o m, deafening** them both, both bodies incapable of hearing their words and moans and soft noises -

 

only -

 

“I AM  **NOT** YOUR GOD.”

 

OH GOD - OH - OH - OH - N O 

 

Turlough knows that voice. He remembers now.

 

_ Their hands are on the back of his head, banging his jaw against the side of the bucket; he’s going to die here, in this school, alone. His mind slowly goes over every regret _

 

_ [ he was so awful, so unpleasant---] _

 

_ [ he thinks about loving ] _

 

_ [---and good is unreachable, goodness is just another way of decaying, he cannot recognize himself in the reflection he is imagining, the reflection his face makes in the water when he succumbs o h---] _

 

_ [ and realizes that love ] _

 

_ [ ---his life over, it is the freedom he has always wanted. ] _

 

_ [ does not apply to him; this monster torn from its home, wild. ] _

 

_ It goes black; both eyes and hope dwindling, fire-water contrast; he fizzles away. It is freedom. He would thank them, if he was in a position where he could thank them. _

 

_ Thank you. I should thank you. I find myself cold in the plane of the afterlife and I thank you for freeing me; my body stops struggling and I do not - he does not - he doesn’t - kneel. He is in the ground, position of prayer with his head in the water. This is rebirth. This is. This. Is. He does not kneel and there is no one listening to his cries.  _

 

_ He wants to--- _

 

_ Turlough thinks that it is over--- _

 

_ and a hand wraps tightly around his neck, pulls him from the water. Turlough coughs the water up; instinct rules lives, how the body forces itself to survive against the will of the mind. _

 

_ When he opens his eyes, the kids are scattered on the ground, each with their hands over their hearts, clutching their chests, are they--- _

 

_ “What---are they dead?” Turlough’s voice is too soft, Turlough’s voice is too rough, Turlough should not talk, should not open himself up. Turlough should be: _

 

_ a body, lifeless. HE SHOULD TAKE THEIR PLACES, HE SHOULD BE THE DEAD ONE. Oh. Oh. This isn’t what life is supposed to be like. He was supposed to die. He was supposed to choke on his freedom, his pain running through his body and forcing itself out through the mouth. _

 

_ “They are dead.” _

 

_ Turlough turns around slowly, every inch of his skin frozen. The man is old and - angry. Why is he angry? Why would he save Turlough?  _

 

_ “Who are you?” _

 

_ “We have to go,” the man says, his voice soaked in age.  _

 

_ “Where?” _

 

_ “Does it matter? If you stay, they’ll label you a murderer. We have to go  _ **_now._ ** _ ” _

 

“You’re the one who put me here,” he yells, sound back, and a man covered in black enters the voiddark room, the air around them tornadoforce. 

 

“Yes, and what a foolish mistake that was,” it- _ he  _ growls. “I should have let you die in that school.”

 

The Doctor sets Turlough to the side. He stands up, begins to approach -  _ what would he even do - _

 

“Doctor, don’t.”

 

“What?”

  
  
  
  


He remembers who he is now. He is  _ not  _ a monster.

 

“You turned me into this and you  _ left  _ me here,” he screams. “You forced me to eat my friend. Why? Why would you do that?”

 

“Because you were perfect,” he replies. “You were so  _ easy.  _ All you wanted was freedom, boy. Aren’t you happy about that? I gave you what you wanted. I gave you what you wanted, and you gave me what I needed.”

 

“What do you mean by that?” the Doctor asks. 

 

The laugh is deafening again.  _ HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.  _ “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND,” he says, and quieter: “I don’t know why he kept you.” He turns to Turlough. “This Time Lord could’ve prolonged my life… indefinitely, almost.”

 

It falls together, the marionettes collapsing:;  _ Turlough’s hunger was never real. The lured people kept this “man”-entity alive. Nothing was e v e r real. He sharpened Turlough’s teeth and claws and  _ **_used_ ** _ him. _

 

The Doctor feels -  _ rage -  _ running through him, endless. He is not the kind of person who feels rage, but: he kept Turlough, locked him up, forced him to behave monstrously for selfish reasons;  _ this  _ is the monster,  _ this  _ is the abhorrent. This unwilling existence is absolutely and utterly despicable. The reveal would upset anyone, but the Doctor can never feel in balances so  _ what a monster, monster, beat! pulse! monster!  _ The Doctor can never

 

balance

 

a n y t h i n g

 

so he wants to let himself unravel. It goes against every part of his being, every part of his composition everything everything EVERYTHING;  _ rage,  _ tearing everything up like a monster, a wolf, a monster, an animal, a monster.

 

Wai---t.

 

“Why are you telling us this now? Why reveal everything?” He’s like a cartoon villain, the Doctor thinks, Turlough thinks because they can feel it because they are the same; revealing the plan in the last minutes of the episode after being foiled;  _ wai---t _

 

they haven’t.

 

They haven’t!

 

“ I have no use for Turlough anymore, now that he’s been ruined by your -” a deep sigh of disgust - “love.” He throws his hands up. “ _ You,  _ Doctor, were never supposed to end up here… but I have to admit, you’re a much more  _ interesting  _ individual. Don’t you ever get tired?”

 

“Of what?”

 

“Him.”

 

Turlough looks over at him, as if he’s waiting for a response. It’s shattering. It’s eviscerating. He never does. He never. Ever. Happily  _ ever  _ AFTER he never does. He’s actually offended at the look;  _ how, after everything, can he not Know? _ Know that the Doctor can never

 

hold

 

himself back, and loves.

 

“Of course not,” the Doctor says, quickly - it’s true, no one he has ever known has been tiring, “and stop trying to deflect. What are you going to do now?”

 

The man shrugs. “Seeing as the surroundings failed to destroy or trick you, I’ll just have to do it myself. You should’ve figured that out, too.”

 

He waves a hand and two lions appear beside him, growling with wet mouths. They’re going to die here, holding hands.

 

Wai---t.

 

“Wait,” the Doctor hisses, “wait.  _ Wait. _ You still need someone to use, a vessel to give you what you want, right? Right. R--right. Let him go. I’ll stay for you.”

 

“No,” Turlough says firmly. “No, Doctor, you’re not going to do that,” and the Doctor motions for him to shut up, pushes him away. Turlough will not stop him. Turlough - he  _ deserves. _

 

A nod. The lions calm down. “I’ll consider that.” He bites his lip, and moments later: “On one condition, I will let him go.”

 

“What is it?” the Doctor asks.

 

“He’ll have to rip your heart out.”

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

\---------

\---------

\------------

\-------------------

 

Turlough’s face is beaten away, every part of him torn--- _ he’ll have to rip your heart out--- _ he cannot hurt the Doctor, the Doctor is the only person who has ever

 

l o v e d

 

him

 

like this, in the right way, in the Pure way. He---he---

 

“Won’t that kill him?”

 

“Nonsense.” God-- _ God--- _ he won’t stop  _ laughing.  _ “He has a spare.”

 

Turlough turns to the Doctor, his own heart ripped out of his chest, his own heart dead and rotten, pink muscle streaks shining through the ash,  _ the Doctor saved him--- _

 

“I can’t let you do this.”

 

“I want to,” replies the Doctor, and the Doctor takes his hand, and the Doctor is everything in the world. The world that he can remember, the outside world. He wants. He wants. He  _ wants _

 

to be free, to experience life with the Doctor, to love like a being.

 

“I won’t hurt you.”

 

“You…”

 

The Doctor bites his lip. Turlough imagines their kisses, their love, their intimacy, the red string between them -

 

all

 

gone

 

ripped

 

out. He cannot bear it.

 

“You’ll hurt me more if you don’t let me do this.”

 

It all flashes, flutters in front of his eyes birdlike ----  _ He met Turlough and he stays with Turlough and their bodies are hot like stars and Turlough is moaning his name into his mouth Doctor Doctor Doctor Doctor Doctor Doctor Doctor Doctor Doctor and pleasepleasepleaseplease— _

 

_ “Turlough,” he whispers, “I love you—” _

 

The wings move too fast for his eyes to process.  _ The Doctor and Turlough if Turlough had any kind of identity any place in the world any way to love any worth beyond metal and teeth if Turlough was _

 

_ worthy _

 

_ of this love. The Doctor and Turlough!!!! Forever!!! Transcending names!! Transcending status and the human concept of love; the problem with - whatever Turlough  _ **_is -_ ** _ is that he feels love deep in every layer of his skin and every cell of his body torches, his w h o l e b e i n g on fire for the Doctor, for the kind of love that takes a shovel and unburies the body, the body, the body that is no longer a body but a vessel, a hollow shell that is entered and operated against all that is Good. Every part of him loves the Doctor but no part of him can ever not in A N Y life understand why the Doctor would want to touch the scales of his skin, put his mouth against Turlough’s teeth. _

  
  


“Why?” Turlough asks, quivering. “Why would you do this for me?”

 

“Because you’re worth it,” the Doctor replies. “I think you deserve to be free.”

 

“I’m a coward.”

 

“You’re not. The bravery you have displayed is unlike anything else I’ve ever seen.”

 

“You think I’m  _ brave? _ ” Turlough says, and the last word booms throughout their world. Brave. Brave. Brave. Brave. Brave. “What do you know?”

 

“Turlough, I’ve been inside your mind---”

 

“I know. And you still - you still  _ say  _ you love me, but how many other people have you loved? I bet you didn’t meet them like  _ this. _ ”

 

They are still holding hands. The Doctor looks down at the way they are tangled, thinks of everyone he has ever known in the span of a small moment. “Everyone is special,” he decides. “You are worthy, Turlough. I wish you could see yourself the way I do.”

 

“No,” Turlough whispers, pulls away, places his thumbs over his eyes sssssshhhhhhaaaaakkkkkeeeeeeesss his head, possession. “No. No. No, I’m not---I don’t---you have to go. You have to leave me here.”

 

“I’m not going to do that.”

 

“You’re  _ stupid, _ ” Turlough screams, and he takes one hand and he takes one hand and he takes one hand and he

 

OH, NO

 

oh

 

he places it on the Doctor’s chest he can feel the doublebeats he can feel everything he can feel the love he can feel it all it all they can do this Together AsOne one being forever until the universe

 

until the universe

 

until the unive

 

until the uni

 

until the u

 

until the

 

until th

 

until t

 

until

 

un

 

u

 

the Doctor winces, and screams, and Turlough is holding one of his hearts in his hand. It’s still beating. It is still beautiful. He knows the Doctor inside and out, now. He has explored the Doctor’s all.

 

The man in black grins. He does not laugh. He pulls the heart out of Turlough’s hands, and he does not laugh.

 

“Oh,” Turlough says. The Doctor is clutching his chest; Turlough can see the corners of a gap around his hand. “I’m sorry, I didn’t---”

 

“You’re so predictable, boy.” He squeezes the Doctor’s heart, and the Doctor falls to the floor. “You’ve been so good to me.”

 

Turlough cannot see. There are tears, or light. There is no difference between tears and light.

 

“But I must honor the deal.”

 

“No,” Turlough says. “No, please, let me stay, I’m so sorry, Doctor, I’m so---”

 

Oh, more light. Oh. The world around them is spinning; his only sensations:

 

fa

 

ll

 

in

 

g

 

and the smell of rotten meat fresh, wrapped around his nose and his mouth, h

 

and the sound

 

of

 

s

 

sound of

 

screaming?

 

It is a deep scream. It is a deep, guttural scream. It does not sound like the Doctor but it is the Doctor, and this is  _ his fault,  _ he is truly a monster, he has to die, he ripped out the only person who would ever love him existences pulsing in his hand now he has to die he has to find a way to leave he does not deserve to live and he does not deserve this freedom and he does not deserve anything, he holds his breath, he

 

his chest hits rough ground, he can feel his ribs against the surface, banging and clanging and weak.

 

And something takes his hand.

 

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I'm still debating writing an epilogue, but wow... I can't believe I actually finished this. For all intents and purposes, it is over. It's hard to grasp that.
> 
> Anyway, if you actually read this to the end, I would highly appreciate a comment letting me know your opinion. Thank you :)


End file.
